While other aerator-circulators claim to move liquid to the surface, either by accident or by design, and some mechanisms may attempt to enhance surface area and exposure by violent surface disruption including heaters, blowers, pulsaters, frothers, wave machines, and other mechanical means, there has been no attempt to increase the surface exposure of the contents of a liquid body to atmospheric oxygen and UV radiation by mechanisms intended for inducing numerous and complex, surface sub-vortices that provide gentle swirling, rolling, roiling, rotating or tumbling while avoiding turbulence, maintaining a complex, quiescent, non-violent flow and thereby avoiding unintended disruption to fragile microbial digestion, reproduction as well as bio-floc or bio-film forming processes.
The present invention improves the performance of conventional wastewater treatment ponds and water remediation activities by adding means to generate numerous complex sub-vortices in liquid flows on a quiescent surface and to increase liquid re-oxygenation, as well as exposure of liquid contents to UV sunlight. The apparatus brings microbes and nutrients together and into contact with each other and with atmospheric and dissolved oxygen. Likewise the apparatus aids pathogen inactivation and large molecule degradation by bringing liquid contents into increased exposure to UV radiation from sunlight.
The floating oxygenation circulator platform (OCP), designed in accordance with the present invention represents a variety of improvements to existing technology that are specifically designed to induce gentle, non-disruptive sub-vortices in a liquid flow, thus to increase and enhance the exposure of liquid contents to atmospheric oxygen and UV sunlight radiation at the surface during circulation and to enhance microbial digestion by bringing microbes and nutrients together, in contact with oxygen while avoiding violent disruption.
It is contemplated that the present invention relates to a variety of different fields. Initially, it is thought that the invention applies to fields which include, but are not limited to, any floating, suspended, fixed or mounted apparatus for circulation in liquids including stirrers, bubble blowers, compressors, pumps, pond mills and other apparatus claimed to mix or circulate liquid. The present invention relates most directly to devices for creating bottom to top circulation and mixing in large liquid bodies, usually greater than one million gallons and typically in bodies of 10 million to 100 million gallons or larger without limit.
Limitations of Other Oxygenation Devices and Other Circulators.
Traditionally with regard to the oxygenation of liquids, bubble blowers and air diffusers linked to pumps and compressors have been used to inject air under pressure into liquid bodies in an attempt to oxygenate the liquid and satisfy oxygen demand. It has been thought that the more air injected, the greater the pressure applied and the smaller the bubbles, the more oxygen would be imparted into the water. This path has led to systems that employ huge amounts of horsepower to force larger and larger quantities of air in smaller and smaller bubbles into a liquid. Experience has shown that such systems reach the limits of oxygen transfer at about 2-3 lbs of oxygen per horsepower. Over fifty years this experience has been instructive and has shown that above certain limits, increased horsepower with more violent disturbance to the liquid, produces decreasing amounts of microbial digestion for each increase in energy and effort.
How the Invention Addresses Technical Problems in Water and Wastewater Treatment and Remediation
The invention described here as a floating oxygenation circulator platform (OCP), moves liquid to the surface using an impeller or other means to initiate upward flows. Moving liquid to the surface in this manner induces formation of a large, gentle, bottom-to-top toroidal vortex flow in the liquid body. Importantly the present invention combines this large toroidal vortex flow induction with means to induce gentle complex sub-vortices as liquid flows upward, around, past and out from the body of the circulator platform and moves outward on the surface of the liquid. The formation of gentle complex surface sub-vortices enhance microbial activity, contributes to large molecule degradation and supports pathogen inactivation in the following ways:
Surface sub-vortices expand the exposed surface to allow absorption of more atmospheric oxygen faster.
Complex surface sub-vortices enhance the exposure of pathogens and large molecules to direct UV sunlight for more effective pathogen inactivation and faster large molecule degradation.
Gentle surface sub-vortex activities tumble the microbial biomass into direct contact with atmospheric oxygen to increase biomass growth and vitality beyond the limits of dissolved oxygen alone.
Continuous circulation and gentle surface vortex activity brings colonies of microbes together into contact with nutrients, with oxygen and with each other to enhance the formation of numerous, complex bio-flocs and bio-films that can work together to accomplish complex microbial digestive tasks.
All this is accomplished without violent disruption to fragile microbial digestive activities or to the formation of delicate and complex bio-flocs and bio-films.
Sub-vortex induction means are mounted on, made part of, attached to, extended out from or placed around the circulator platform and arranged to induce or enhance sub-vortex formation on the surface of or deeper down in the liquid. The oxygenation circulator platform (OCP) with sub-vortex induction means produces a swirling, rolling roiling, rotating or tumbling in the liquid flow as it moves upward and outward past the body of the platform and across the surface of the liquid. These sub-vortices act to increase the surface exposure of liquid contents to atmospheric oxygen and UV sunlight. However no single means, structure, enhancement or embodiment of this invention, taken by itself, is likely to induce the desired sub-vortex flows and the desired exposure of fluid contents to oxygen and sunlight. It is only by combinations of sub-vortex induction means, enhancements or embodiments acting together or in sequence, that desired vortex flow patterns are induced in varied liquids with different flow kinetics and viscosities.
Therefore the present invention intends to patent a process utilizing an array of options to accomplish said process, without limiting the patent to any particular array or set of embodiments or options. The invention is in no way limited to any particular feature, embodiment or set of enhancements described herein, but makes claims that apply to any and all means that may be attached to, made part of, mounted on, extended from or placed around the body of a floating oxygenation circulator platform (OCP), and arranged for purposes of inducing gentle, complex sub-vortices in a fluid flowing upward and outward past the body of the platform. The invention claimed is embodied in the process of creating an enhanced primary vortex flow and induced complex sub-vortices in a liquid passing the body of a floating oxygenation circulator platform (OCP) by causing fluid to flow over, under, around or past any single or any variety of sub-vortex induction means mounted on, made part of, attached to, extended out from or placed around the circulator platform for the purpose of enhancing the exposure of liquid and its contents to oxygen and sunlight on a constantly renewing surface moving outward from the platform.
As with all rotating biological contactors (RBC's), aerobic digestion is enhanced when microbial organisms and colony forming units (CFU's) have direct and recurring contact with atmospheric oxygen. The primary advantages of the disclosed invention are therefore two fold:
Exposure of microbes and liquid contents to oxygen and sunlight on the surface of liquid is increased by the formation of numerous sub-vortices, formed in a gentle surface current without violent disturbance of microbial activity and with the result that more oxygen and UV radiation can be received by the liquid and its contents more quickly while avoiding disruption to quiescent microbial processes.
Since aerobic microbes brought into contact with the atmosphere breath oxygen directly, microbial digestion in liquids is no longer limited to or dependant solely upon the amount of oxygen that can be dissolved into the liquid.
The disclosed platform draws energy from an on-board solar array or from attached electrical lines. In natural settings, the low profile platform produces no audible noise, and offers little surface visibility or visual intrusiveness for onlookers enjoying the view.
The disclosed platform (OCP) is efficient and capable of bottom-to-top circulation, moving liquid in a range greater than 100,000 gallons per minute while expending less than one horsepower of energy. In toroidal circulation of this type, deep, wide and gentle liquid flow encourages microbial digestion by bringing nutrients and microbes together into contact with each other, and transporting them to the surface into contact with oxygen and UV sunlight. With the present invention, sub-vortices are initiated as the liquid passes in the vicinity of the device or is affected by contact with the body of the device or with contact with sub-vortex induction means mounted on, attached to, made part of, extended out from the device.
Induced sub-vortex surface action brings liquid contents more directly into contact with atmospheric oxygen and UV sunlight. At the expanded surface, the liquid itself absorbs dissolved oxygen to be re-distributed along with the nutrients and microbes throughout the liquid body. Gentle flows prevent violent disruption of quiescent microbial digestion and encourage formation of complex bio-floc and bio-film communities while avoiding disturbance of sediments and minimizing problematic re-suspension of solids. On the surface, repeated exposure of liquid contents to UV sunlight inactivates and destroys a wide range of disease pathogens that sicken animals and humans. UV sunlight also degrades dangerous large molecules, like dioxins and PCB's that can cause cancer. Finally complex sub-vortices in the top-downward return flow moves algae and other colonizing organism's and off the surface and out of the sunlight, thus reducing their capability to bloom and to block sunlight from competing aquatic life below. The present invention builds and improves upon prior circulation efforts by adding means to initiate and cause the formation of numerous complex, sub-vortex flows as liquid passes in the vicinity of the body of the OCP and moves outward from it.